Our Futures (They Weren't Meant to be Forever)
by The Periodic Table of Converse
Summary: The Oncoming Storm and the Bad Wolf. They take the universe in stride and by storm. They hold hands and run and save the world with only a bright blue police box and a rather unorthodox sonic screwdriver. Infallible, inseparable, devoted and dedicated and so very much in love. Rose/9, Rose/10.


Number Nine is stiff and gruff and a little awkward. It's him, his TARDIS, his sonic screwdriver, and no one else against the whole of time and space – the entire universe – which is just the way he likes it, thank you _very_ much. He dresses in the same soft, olive-green jumper each day, and throws on top of it his worn leather jacket. His trousers and boots are always dark in color, and he never likes to concern himself with finding something different to wear. No sense in some sort of change. He likes this life and regeneration just the way it is.

Only one day – as much as the time he spends in his sentient, time-traveling, glorified planet-hopping blue police box can be considered days – he lands in Cardiff, the year two thousand and five A.D., hoping to find something exciting to do and someone naïve to impress with his brilliant mind. He wanders into a shop called Henricks, somewhere he would never bother going normally – it's a _clothing_ store! – and stumbles upon the Nestene Consciousness at work. He's down in the basement, busy tracing the signal to the roof when he hears a faint voice demanding to know who is behind this cruel dummy prank. He dashes past rows of mannequins slowly beginning to work their plastic arms and legs. There she is, a girl with bleached blonde hair and glossy pink lips – a chav, he is ashamed to admit as the first thought in his head – who has blundered in and almost ruined the whole thing.

She's backed up against a wall, a white-yellow hand raised and ready to clobber her, and before he can stop and think about what he's doing, his hand is clasped firmly with her's and he's uttered a single word, "_Run,"_ and off they go, pushing open a set of double doors and sprinting into the lift. He yanks off the arm of the mannequin that tries to keep the elevator open, tosses the dormant dummy's appendage to her and then dismisses it from his mind. She demands to know who did it, asks him if they're students. They aren't, obviously, but it's a good guess and he tells her so, somewhat begrudgingly.

(To appease his ego, his tone suggests his praise is patronizing.)

Then he tells her Wilson, the chief electrician, is dead. She tells him that's not funny, it's sick. He agrees, but that he doesn't mention, berating voice or not.

He goes running off down the hall and she follows him, asking questions and for a second it feels a bit like having a companion. Except he doesn't want a companion, no he does not. He shows her the explosive he's going to use on the relay device on the roof. Honestly, he doesn't know why he's telling her, but it doesn't matter because she has a life – if a vague and dull one at that – to get back to, and he tells her so, wishing her to go home and enjoy her beans on toast.

"_I'm the Doctor, by the way, what's your name? … Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!"_

And that's it, he thinks, watching Rose Tyler dash out into the street still holding that arm and with hardly a backwards glance. That's all he's ever going to see her, she's gone back to her ignorant and boring existence of working and sleeping and eating and wondering what it would be like to live a life more meaningful than the one she's living.

And then he blows up her job, and he thinks it just a tad bit ironic that he's removed one of the very few aspects of her existence and she's down to doing nothing but eating chips and watching the telly and snoozing off and on until ten.

Until he pokes his face through one (used to be) nailed-down cat flap and sees Rose's big, dark brown eyes staring straight back at him. Her heavy black lashes blink once, and then she's yanked open the door. "You're not plastic by any chance, are you?" he asks, and raps her soundly on the forehead. "Nope, bonehead. Well, bye!"

He has hardly the time to turn to leave before she has grabbed him firmly by the arm and tugged him into the hall of her flat.

"You, inside, now."

He rummages through her sitting room while she makes him tea, and looks at the tabloids declaring the wedding of two actors – she's alien, he's gay, they're married, _seriously?_ – he doesn't remember the names of. "That won't last," he comments, and drops the magazine back onto the cluttered table.

He rifles through the emptied envelopes lying on her coffee table – Rose Tyler. And, ah – there it is: the arm. Rose had toted it home last night, he had forgotten about that. He goes to disable it with the sonic, only – whoops – it's grabbed onto his neck. Of course, then Rose comes in – when did he start thinking of her as Rose? – makes a general quip about men in general and the dummy's arm, all while he's being strangled to death by a measly piece of living plastic. What an ego killer.

When she realizes what it's actually doing – that is, trying to _kill _him – he expects her to scream or stand terrified, only she doesn't, she tries to help. It latches onto her face instead.

The Doctor is quick to try and pull it off of her, only not before smashing their glass coffee table and landing in a thoroughly awkward position where she's lying on top of him. He jiggles the button on his malfunctioning screwdriver for a moment, then runs the sonic over it, ensuring it's completely dead before he tosses it back to her. Some sort of (once) deadly souvenir.

"See, 'armless," he tells her.

"D' you think?" she says, and whacks the arm against the Doctor's bicep.

"Ow!" he whines, and then turns to leave, ready to hunt down that Nestene Consciousness and get away, maybe to Barcelona or somewhere nice and not life-threatening, and preferably not populated by humans.

"'old on, you can't just go swanning off on me."

"Yes I can. This is me, swanning off."

She follows him on the – slightly long – walk back to the TARDIS, asking questions the whole way. He answers them, except he doesn't know why, because she wouldn't care anyways, but she stays and asks some more.

"Do you believe me?" he asks her, and she says "No," anyways. He looks over at her, all pink and yellow, young and stubborn, yet she's following _him_, and he tells her plainly that she's still listening.

She is the first in a while to have done that.

She stops on the corner perpendicular to the TARDIS, and says, "Really though, Doctor. Tell me. Who are you?"

He turns around for a minute. In fact, he's half debating swanning off, only she's genuinely curious and he walks back to her. "Do you know like we were saying? About the Earth revolving? It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it." He grabs her hand, almost unaware he's doing so. For a moment, his heartbeats speed up. "The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning a thousand miles an hour. And the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me. Clinging to the skin of this tiny little world and if we let go…" He drops her hand. Slowly, his hearts return to normal. "That's who I am. Now forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home." And he turns to go, back to his TARDIS and his life of nobody and nothing knowing who he is or where he comes from

Later, at a small café, he sees her again – more importantly, he will try to convince himself – he sees who she's with: a plastic duplicate of a black boy with close cropped hair. His face is shiny and his smile is borderline-molester, and as he snags a bottle of champagne, he wonders how she didn't notice the replacement, especially considering the Nestene is grilling Rose for information on the Doctor. They make a mess, the Doctor steals a head, and then they run for their lives. He brings her onboard his ship, traces the signal. She finds the dish before he does, and it is once again as though he has a companion. His hand finds hers as they run.

And he'll admit. She saved his life in there. He likes her, and her observation skills, and she's not awfully obnoxious. So he invites her to come with him.

"_Yeah, I can't. I've, um, gotta go and find my mum. And someone's gotta look after this stupid lump, so…"_

And that's it. Her answer is no. He's still a one-man act, the way he likes it, the way he tells himself he likes it. He steps back inside his TARDIS – Time And Relative Dimension In Space, he had told her – and leaves. He goes on adventures, and he's lonely, something he thought he wasn't until that one pink and yellow human – a girl, only nineteen, and to be honest, in the grand scheme of the universe, she is _tiny_ – who cared enough to follow him and who stopped the Nestene Consciousness and saved his life and declined his offer to see the universe. And that decides it. It's been a month since he's seen her last, when he appears on that street corner and pops out of the TARDIS, acting like it's been seconds. And for her, it has.

"Did I mention it also travels in time?"

He asked twice. He never asks twice, human or otherwise. Only he asked Rose Tyler twice, and he is ecstatic that he did, because Rose Tyler is the kinda person you can never be lonely around.

She bounds into the TARDIS with all the excitement of an eager newborn puppy, all swingy blonde hair and sparkling eyes. He takes her to the end of the universe, maybe as a test to see how much she's willing to endure of his lifestyle before she snaps. Only she passes with flying colors, and they climb back onto the glorified planet-hopper with heavy hearts, emotionally exhausted and physically drained. He trudges around the console, easing switches up and down and pushing buttons, expecting to hear her demanding to take her back home.

Instead, she stands on the ramp and watches with crossed arms for a minute, then asks if he keeps beds aboard and if so, could he possibly point her to one, please?

She's through the doorway and into the hall before he can say anything else.

ooo

Somewhere along the way – it could have been at any time: the Gelth, the Slitheen, the Daleks, the Jagrafess, the Reapers, the nanogenes, or during the Sycorax or New(x15) York, or the werewolf; the clockwork droids in 17th century France, the Cybermen, the Wire, the Devil himself, the Absorbaloff, or the Isolus – but somewhere, something clicked into place, and Rose Tyler and the Doctor were unstoppable.

The Doctor and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS, as it should be. It evolves from simply a chance friendship to something much deeper than that, where the lines are blurred between love and soul mates. They're comfortable with each other – Rose takes the entirety of the Time Vortex into her mind to save the Doctor. The Doctor takes it into his to save Rose. He dies – well, sort of – for her, she offers to die for him. They're thick as thieves. And Rose is quick to reassure him that they are going to be together forever.

They take the universe in stride and by storm. They hold hands and run and save the world with only a bright blue police box and an unorthodox sonic screwdriver. The Oncoming Storm and the Bad Wolf. Infallible, inseparable, devoted and dedicated and so in love and complimenting of each other that their forever – tragically, _heartbreakingly_ – falls short. And when they are worlds away – pressed against the same wall, unaware that their soul mate is right there, only a Void between them – their separate eternities feel like something of a joke.

He burns up a sun many months later, just to savor two more _precious_ minutes with the first girl in the universe in so many centuries to alter his twisted, war-torn soul into someone who loves and appreciates beauty. She stands on the beach in front of him – it's not even him and doesn't that just shred both of his hearts into irreparable scraps – crying and wanting to touch him. He looks like a ghost at first, he feels like a ghost, never around to slide his hand into hers or dance with or show off to.

"_I l – I love you."_

She's breaking apart, he's falling to pieces, and across two universes and a stretch of literally no thing, they are staring into each other's very souls.

"_Quite right too. And I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it… Rose Tyler…"_

If their goodbye being cut short by three simple – and at the same time, laden with every ounce of emotion he has ever felt towards this one miniscule, pink and yellow and positively _sparkling_ human girl – is not some sort of sick joke the whole fabric of creation is playing on him, then he doesn't know what worse evil there could be.

Until there's a woman, red-headed – _ginger, _out of all the colors it could be – and brash and rather rude, who appears in the TARDIS, prances around as though she owns the place. She yells at him and flaunts Rose's jacket and he finds himself clenching his fists to keep from shoving her out into deep space.

He takes her back to her family instead. The TARDIS manual finds its way into the middle of a supernova during his delayed fit of rage.

And somehow, he picks himself up and carries on.

**a/n: Two months of marching band does this to you, folks. I got dem Doctor/Rose feels all over again. And yes, I should have put Jack in here, but like I said – D/R feels. I can't handle any more angst. Also, this may become a sort of thing with a chapter per companion (Martha, Donna, Amy+Rory, Clara), but idk, am I ready for that kind of commitment?**

**Before you ask: I do not like river song.**


End file.
